Real-world experience. Fictional cases. No wasted detail.
New to fiction, but not new to writing, J.D. spent decades in law enforcement, including a long career with the San Jose Police Department and later as a district attorney investigator in Monterey County, where her work focused heavily on major investigations including murders, officer-involved shootings, and in-custody deaths.
J.D.’s debut novel is Reluctant Witness, the first in the Sonja Soto Murder Mysteries series.
A struggling crime victim becomes a reluctant witness when she attends a mystery writer’s conference and gets more than she bargained for.
A chance for romance turns into an unlikely partnership when Sonja and Ares Adams bump into one another before they happen across a double murder at the conference venue. When a homicide detective tries to frame Ares, the would-be couple set out on a hunt for the killer.
Twists and turns ensue as our heroes sort through the possibilities, personalities, leads, personal grievances, and a bureaucracy in this police procedural.
After a career built on thousands of reports and decades of investigative work, J.D. has completed the first draft of her first police procedural novel, Reluctant Witness. This is the start of a new pursuit, built on discipline, craft, and a deep respect for the details that make a story feel real.
Crime doesn’t stay on the page. J.D. writes about the craft, the cases that inspired her, and the details that most fiction gets wrong.
I joined SJPD at 19 wanting to work undercover. Over the years I played a dealer, a pimp, a rogue cop, a pornographer. It’s not the glamour TV sells. Here’s how those characters became fiction.
SJPD detective assignments last three years. I worked sexual assault, child exploitation, burglary, narcotics, and eight years of crime scenes. They called us “Utility Investigators.” Here’s where the stories start.